Quilt instructor turns her love of animals into fabric portraits

Quilters had an exceptional opportunity to combine their affection for cats, dogs, and horses and their artistic quilting abilities into pet portrait patterns at Sisters High School in June Jaeger's Best Friends Pet Portrait Quilts class last Wednesday and Thursday.

Jaeger has drawn animals since she was 5 years old. She has been in the quilting business for over 30 years and designs patterns of subjects that she enjoys and is familiar with: pets and nature.

Imagine preserving your pet memories from photo to fabric as a keepsake. Step by step, Yaeger has taken her students into capturing their personal "best friend" in a quilt portrait.

"I have pet portrait quilts of nearly all of my pets and also my sister, Jean Wells' cat and my neighbor's horses. This was my horse Andy; he helped me make it through my teenage years," said Yaeger as she pointed to his portrait on one of her quilts hanging in the classroom for students to view.

Previously a quilt-shop owner and author of two books on quilting, Yaeger knows what the quilter is looking for, and designs patterns to be clear, concise, and easy to understand.

"I have a lot of my students send me their photo of their pet that they will be working on in class, and I use a projector to enlarge the photo to make a pattern for them to use," said Jaeger. "Capturing animal expressions on quilts is important and fulfills our need to preserve what is in the mind's eye."

"The very first animal portrait quilt I made was of my old yellow lab, Murph, during the time I had a quilt shop in Pendleton, Oregon back in the 1990s," she said.

"I have about 20 students in the class this year during quilt week, and many are complete beginners. It's fun because they get to step back in time and return to kindergarten, putting puzzles together, tracing, and coloring, cutting, and memorizing certain steps. It's a process, and I help them through it," Jaeger said.

Jaeger's life seems to rotate around the quilt show.

"We all get excited about the show, and the students' enthusiasm shows up in class. I get high on my students excitement and the sense of accomplishment they feel when they finally get their fabric puzzle pieces aligned just right and run over to show me," Jaeger said.

During quilt week and on the day of the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, Jaeger's and her students' animal portrait quilts hung indoors and outdoors of many local businesses, including Stitchin' Post, where she teaches quilting classes and workshops through Quilters Affair.

Jaeger's newest quilt book, "Best Friends: Animal Portrait Quilts," can be purchased on her website at www.logcabinquiltworks.com and at Stitchin' Post in Sisters.